Wireless communication systems have become an important means by which many people worldwide have come to communicate. A wireless communication system may provide communication for a plurality of wireless devices, each of which may be serviced through one or more access nodes of the communication system.
Nowadays, many wireless devices are designed to perform tasks beyond voice communications, such as internet browsing, calendar applications, email applications, navigation applications, and even user-generated applications. To perform these and other tasks, wireless devices require increased processing power and the capability to communicate wirelessly at increasingly higher rates. Increased processing power and increased wireless data rates generally increases power consumption of limited battery power, and thus, wireless devices must optimize their battery power usage.
One way of reducing battery power usage of a communication device is by setting the device to idle mode when the communication device is not engaged in a communication session, and remaining in idle mode for as long as possible. However, the period of time a communication device remains in idle mode is set by the communication system and does not take into consideration the battery charge level of the communication device.